The Week in Stats: Champions League final preview

This week, we’ll be looking at the numbers behind this season’s Champions League finalists – Liverpool and Spurs – to see which has the edge.

Points of order

In a season when Liverpool never dropped out of the top three, Spurs didn’t once sit above them in the table, although they were only separated by goal difference for the first few games of the campaign.

While Liverpool finished the season a mammoth 26 points ahead of Spurs, the gap between the two teams was relatively small for the first two-thirds of the campaign. It was never more than six points until matchweek 20 and stood at just five points after 25 games.

It wasn’t until the final nine or so matches of the season the gap between the two sides broadened into a chasm. And it perhaps isn’t a coincidence this period saw one or all of Harry Kane, Eric Dier and Harry Winks out injured. Each of those players is likely to be fit for the final.

Broadening our scope to cover the past few seasons, rolling expected goals (xG) averages are an excellent way of gauging the quality of the chances a team has been creating.

Here, we can see that Spurs had the better of things more often than not from 2014-17. The 2017-18 season turned out to be very even indeed, but this term Liverpool have clearly had the more effective attack.

Looking at expected goals against (xGA) averages – in other words, the quality of the chances a team has allowed its opponents – a similar picture emerges. In contrast to the xG chart, lower values are better here, as they indicate the opposition’s opportunities have been of a poorer quality.

From 2015 through to around the middle of the 2017-18 season, Spurs tended to have the more effective defense. That point, of course, corresponds with the arrival of Virgil Van Dijk at Liverpool. And ever since that juncture, Juergen Klopp’s side have posted markedly superior xGA figures.

Spot the difference

Following Klopp’s arrival in England, parallels have repeatedly been drawn between the tactical approach of himself and Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino. While we should expect to see some broad similarities between the two sides, then, coming into this final both the degree and the amount of statistical resemblances between the teams is remarkable.

For example, if we compare a number of the top-line attacking stats for the two clubs, then it’s hard to tell the difference between the sides.

Much the same can be said when we look at some of the most-used defensive metrics. The figures for aerial duel stats, for example – totals, amounts won and lost, percentages won – are very similar. This is also true of the number of tackles, long balls, interceptions and blocked passes for the two teams.

So, where are the broad differences between the sides?

Well, Liverpool have slightly more possessions overall and complete a higher proportion of their passes, although not to a degree that seems especially significant.

But there are areas in which the differences appear more important. Spurs concede a great many more shots, for example, while Liverpool take both more shots overall and have more shots on target, which is likely to prove pivotal over the course of a league season – although not necessarily in a final, of course.

Tottenham also commit a vastly greater number of fouls on average.

Perhaps more important to this game — given the prodigious creative output of both Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson this season — is the fact Spurs block crosses at a much higher rate than does Liverpool.

Looking further up the field, although in absolute terms the amount of shots from outside the penalty area isn’t so different – 198 for Liverpool, 211 for Tottenham – if we instead to measure the proportion of total shots for each team, the difference is marked: just under 35 percent for Klopp’s side, in contrast to 39.3 percent for Pochettino’s.

Spurs’ players clearly have a very marked preference for a particular area of the pitch, that dark red square around 25 yards from goal in the left half-space. This isn’t hugely surprising, though, given that of Tottenham’s forwards, only the little-seen Erik Lamela favors his left foot.

The contrast is even more conspicuous in terms of where on the pitch these sides are scoring from. A mere 5.8 percent of Liverpool’s goals have come from outside the penalty area, while these shots account for more than four times that amount of Tottenham’s strikes – 21.2 percent in all.

Meanwhile, the obvious area in which Liverpool outperforms Spurs is creating chances with through-balls: Klopp’s side have done this nearly twice as often as Pochettino’s – 29 times to 16. And given through-balls tend to create very high-quality chances, it’s something Liverpool fans should take comfort from.

These are two likable, forward-thinking, entertaining sides, which bodes well for a good spectacle Saturday. It’s a knock-out game, so more or less anything can happen. But the obvious bets seem to be either on a Spurs win settled by a long-range strike, or a Liverpool victory courtesy of a through-ball. Regardless of what happens, though, this could be a match for the ages.